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June 13, 2009

Google to Launch a Microblogging Search Engine

Google prepares to launch a service that indexes and ranks content from microblogging services like Twitter. Since it's very easy to post updates and the posts are usually very short, micro-blogging services are great for live blogging, posting real-time information about an event.

Twitter's search engine has two important drawbacks: it's limited to Twitter and it sorts the results by date. While there are other search engines like Tweefind that try to sort Twitter posts by relevancy and search engines like Twingly that index multiple microblogging sites, none of them does a great job.

Much like Google Blog Search, Google's microblogging search service will sort the results by relevancy and it also be integrated with Google's web search engine: the keywords that are frequently used in recent posts will trigger a MicroBlogsearch universal search group.

Here's the description used in Google's localization service:

"Recent updates about QUERY. This is the MicroBlogsearch Universal result group header text. A Microblog is a blog with very short entries. Twitter is the popular service associated with this format."

"What's really happening in Twitter is that there are a lot of clues in it in terms of what's happening that's interesting overall. It's similar to what we see in Google Trends, where people will often type what they're interested in into the search box, and we can make some predictions off of that. So we are interested in being able to offer, for example, micro-blogging and micro-messaging in our search. Particularly in Blog Search and possibly in Web Search, but we don't have any particular plans to announce."

62 comments:

this is great news, google is doing good job, i tried various twitter search but no one was as good as google is.google blog search is also really helpful to bloggers like me.Lets see what google will do with microblogging search.regardsAmit Patekarhttp://www.webworldguru.com

Twingly sorts the results by date, so it's not much better than Twitter Search, if you don't take into account that it aggregates messages from other services. Sorting the results by date is not a good way to find the most interesting messages about a topic: there's a lot of noise and a search engine should be able to eliminate spam, duplicate messages and only show the most useful posts.

Twitter has a lot of signals that could be used to rank messages: the number of followers, the authority of the author in Twitter's social graph, the frequency of posting messages, the number of replies or re-tweets etc.

Topsy is different--it's indexing the web, not the tweets. It's actually competing with web search, using reference via Twitter as an alternative to links as a means of computing authority. It's an interesting idea, if not quite ready for prime time.

As for a better Twitter search, I'd sure like one. I'm not thrilled with the native Twitter Search, but all of the alternatives are even worse. I'm curious to see how Google will approach the problem, since this doesn't strike me as being in their sweet spot. Any word on the launch time frame?

I don't when it will be launched, but Google Blog Search is a good reference for the ranking problem. A patent shows some of the signals used for ranking blog posts and I'm sure some of them can be used in the new service: links from other sites, the number of subscriptions, the amount of duplicate content, posts added at a predictable time.

search.twitter.com only works with space separated languages, for example Japanese search seldom works. As Google always support East Asian languages well from the beginning, this one will be welcomed.

There are indeed lots of hidden treasures in Twitter. You just need to use a tool like TipTop at http://www.feeltiptop.com to squeeze the juice out of the lemon. For example, this is what TipTop has to say about Google's microblogging search engine at this moment: http://feeltiptop.com/microblogging%20search%20engine/

It is great that Google is committed enough to sends signals that they are moving into the Realtime web. As for competition with Twingly and Twitter Search and Tweefind and the rest, standing in each other's shoulders is always the fastest way forward. Twingly's Project Shinobi will push the co-opetition one step further: http://blog.twingly.com/2009/06/11/announcement-twingly-to-launch-project-shinobi-on-october-1st-2009/

Google's great search algorithms and search bots will aid in driving up traffic streams for Twitter.

Once Twitter becomes a money making entity, the Google Twitter Search Engine will help drive up revenue for Twitter. Of course this would also benefit Google in driving up ad traffic revenue as well. Also, the tactical placement of strong keywords used in Twittering will be recognized by the Google bots and aid in ranking, which will be a valuable asset.

The value behind Tweefind is in the algorithm that works 24 hours a day to assign a rank to every Twitter user, depending on how and how often he uses Twitter. Many different parameters are taken into account and the final rank might change daily. The results of the search is a consequence of that rank.

The same philosophy is applied by the recently launched Tweepfind. It searches inside the user's profile/bio for certain keyword and display the results ordered according to the same rank. Over 4M twitter users have been ranked so far and the algorithm is getting better over time.

A new version of Tweefind.com will be released in a couple of days, so stay tuned.

I think that GOOGLE, is by far the largest search and is growing. All they need to do to get one over on 'Microsoft', is to start their own computer oporating system. Because I also think that they can do better than microsoft. TONY

Yes, I just wonder, how many people really open bing or anything else yet..and search on that, we are so used to just starting with Google. And Google is going to be the absolute lead if it keeps doing what it is....giving people the ease to look for stuff and provide excellent services. Cheers !

i think google is making difference and now as microsoft and yahoo combines their search engine methology bing is going to make different as per quality concern .definatly people will get good response from both site

This is obviously old news now and Twitter is securely embedded in Google's Serps, but no sign of Twitter selling out to Google. Once they get the hang of monetizing Twitter I wonder will it complete or just share the stage with Google? The latter me thinks.

I think this is very good news for all those persons which are doing work on new technology. Now they could easily boost their products into the market by using this google new service. micro-blogging services are great for live blogging, posting real-time information about an event.

This is obviously old news now and Twitter is securely embedded in Google's Serps, but no sign of Twitter selling out to Google. Once they get the hang of monetizing Twitter I wonder will it complete or just share the stage with Google? The latter me thinks.

Ya thats very old news dear Google already had started that service. Also Google had stopped the realtime search after its breakup with Twitter but its going to launch new search results for micro blogging soon with a new name.